Vacation - Day Four: Local Favorites

We took our time getting up and at 'em on Tuesday morning.  Around 10:00 am, we rolled into Bear World.  Once upon a time, when we lived five miles from it, we were season pass holders at Bear World.  The girls still have fond memories of it, but the three boys had no memory of it at all.

I have mixed feelings about Bear World.  Part of me hates how artificial and touristy it is.  Having camped in Yellowstone nearly every summer of my youth, I like true nature as opposed to artificial nature.  And bear World is INCREDIBLY over priced!  Still, the other part of me has to admit that they do a very good job there.  It's clean and entertaining and loads of fun - especially for little city kids like ours.

We drove through the animal area three times - once when we first arrived, once when we followed the tour bus that feeds the bears so we could see them all gather around, and once when we were leaving.  David promised a milkshake to anyone who spotted the wolves.  They are very hard to find.  However, on the third time through, David himself found them!  It was pretty awesome!

Here's a grizzly

Look at them gather for food!  Looks like my house!

The petting zoo is a fun place to spend some time!  

Nicki and Quin stuck together.  Look at that pot bellied pig!  She made me laugh!

Alison and her woodland friends.

Bronson loved it all, but he was especially interested in the chickens. He loved hanging out by the coop and pointing out the eggs in the nesting boxes to every person who came by.

Josh spent a little time with every animal there.  He's trying to bind with ducks here.

David was totally grossed out by this deer who kept licking his elbow.  Hey, deer - this is a people-pet-animal zoo, not the other way around!

 We spent quite a bit of time in the little carnival ride area.  I guess if you consider how much cash those things cost at a fair or carnival and how many times our kids rode, we probably got our money's worth after all.

Nicki and Quin on the little roller coaster.  He was NOT a fan!

Little twirly bears - kind of like the tea cup rides at other carnivals.  Bronson rode this dozens of times - alone, with strangers, with his own family - he didn't care!

Little free-fall ride.  Alison said she remembered this ride being much more exciting when she was little.

This train was more Quinton's speed.  Both of his sisters were kind enough to take him a million times.

Quin driving a bouncy car.

We stayed at Bear World for nearly four hours.  The boys were in heaven.  We had packed a picnic and our swimming clothes for the rest of our day, but we were so hot and tired by that time that we decided to go back to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  We ate our picnic at their kitchen counter, then put the little boys down for cool, dark, peaceful naps.  It was a good move.

Around 4:00 pm, we put on our swim suits, loaded up the van and headed out to Rigby Lake.  It's just a few miles from our old house.  Again, the girls remembered it, the boys didn't.   Things started out a little rough.  All the kids split up and headed in their own direction.  It's a big, crowded place to set a bunch of non-and-not-great swimmers off on their own!  David and I had a few tense moments gathering our gaggle of Gees and setting some ground rules. Once they were in place, however, and everyone whose feathers were ruffled calmed down a bit, we had a lovely time!

4:00 pm is a great time to be there!  The day time crowd is clearing out and the evening crowd isn't there yet.  We had a large strip of beach to ourselves.

Cute beach boy!

Building sand castles.

Bronson worked hard to make an ocean for his toys.

Josh's sandcastle had a moat with a drawbridge and it had a river that connected it all the way over to Bronson's ocean.

Nicole took on the job of finding large rocks for her siblings' castles.

Found one.

Ali put those rocks to use in her pond.

No trip to the beach would be complete without burying someone at least a little bit.

 We stayed at the lake for a couple of hours.  There is also a fun playground there that the kid spent a few minutes on.  By then, we were all pretty hungry.  Alison and Nicole really wanted to eat at a little place near the lake called The Great Bambino.  Basically, they make circular hot pockets.  They had a store in Rexburg when the kids were little and I guess we ate there often enough that both girls remembered and WANTED them!  So we went!  I will not bore you with the details of that decision - only to say that they were severely understaffed and over busy.  The bambinos were very tasty, but not wait-for-45-minutes-in-your-swim-suit-with-hangry-kids-and-dad-in-the-van tasty.  But we got them!  Then, we drove across the street to Wendy's where we bought fries and drinks to go with them (and a burger for David who didn't want a Bambino).

We got back to the grandparents house, bathed the sand off of everyone, and went to bed!